Europe Today: US envoys meet Putin as Europe pushes to join Ukraine talks

Good morning. It's finally Friday, November 13th. You're watching Euronews and this is Europe Today. Our top stories. Speed restrictions on Starshield, the military version of the Starlink satellite service SpaceX, are back, disrupting Ukraine's ability to intercept Russian drones. Restrictions have affected Ukrainian military operations across the entire frontline and Russian-occupied territories for several days, Ukrainian President Zelensky said. Neither Washington nor SpaceX CEO Elon Musk have publicly accepted responsibility for for imposing the restrictions last month. Jensen Huang has resigned as chief executive of Nvidia following reports that he had a relationship with a suspected Chinese agent. The company's board announced yesterday that Huang, who co-founded the firm in 1993, had stepped down as president, chief executive and board member. Earlier, the New York Times had reported a second affair with a married healthcare executive who reported to him. That may have broken the company's code of conduct. And... France has signaled it may support Pablo Hernández de Cos to succeed Christine Lagarde as European central bank president next year, the Financial Times reported. This could cement a consensus behind the Spanish economist, who is backed by his home country. It would potentially facilitate a deal among EU leaders, which includes two other key positions on the ECB's executive board. ECB nominations will be discussed among EU leaders informally in Dublin today. Welcome to the program. I'm Stefan Grobe. U.S. Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, seeking his blessing for European representatives to join negotiations on ending Russia's war against Ukraine. While Washington has signaled progress towards a broader negotiating format, Putin has reiterated Moscow's hardline demands on territory and security guarantees, rejecting proposals for demilitarized zones and the deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine. To make sense of it all, Sasha Vakulina joins me now, our Ukraine correspondent. Good morning, Sasha. So one of the main objectives of Witkoff and Kushner's meeting with Putin was to secure approval, Putin's approval, for European representatives to join the peace process, the peace negotiations. Did they receive his blessing? Isn't it interesting, Stefan, how the negotiations have changed and the focus shifted into what we're hearing now is about the American negotiators trying to convince Putin to allow the Europeans at the table. Not that much conversation is there about a ceasefire, specifically civilian energy infrastructure ceasefire or any sort of an end to Moscow's war against Ukraine. Great. And yet now, according to. They did manage to convince Putin to allow the Europeans at the negotiating table. But if you listen to the statements coming from the Kremlin officials, this is not the case. They still very hard no on that. They don't want to have the Europeans and they haven't changed their stance. It is also interesting how Jared Kushner, the U.S. envoy, was trying to convince Russia's president to allow the Europeans at the table. Let's take a listen to that. We've seen a big change with the Europeans and we think there's a very strong momentum and desire to engage together and we're very confident that if we move to a multilateral format that we'll continue to make progress to resolve the issues and we believe that will help us end the war. So, having a European representative at the table, fine. But the question is, who should that person be? But the issue here is that this is not even something that the Europeans can agree upon. Would that be Antonio Costa? Would that be Kaja Kallas? Would that be the head of one of the EU member states? or non-EU member states. There is no consensus or agreement about that. And that is, of course, something that causes lots of criticism, extra criticism in Moscow. And I'm going to give you something that Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said yesterday about this process, which is honestly becoming a little embarrassing. Now, he said, quote, the Europeans squabble like spiders in a jar, unquote, when it comes to who can represent Europe. Yikes. Sasha Vakulina, thank you very much for this. And now let's go straight over to Dublin, where President Zelensky held late-night talks with the U.S. envoys Kushner and Witkoff in a military base outside Dublin. Our NATO correspondent Shona Murray was at the hastily arranged meeting. Good morning, Shona. So you saw all of these characters. What can you tell us? Good morning, Stefan. I did say to you yesterday that the meeting of the European political community would be one like no other. And I wasn't wrong. Now, we did know that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were coming to Dublin to meet and debrief Zelensky straight from Moscow. But all throughout the day yesterday, there was concern that it might be postponed or wouldn't go ahead at all because the flight kept on getting delayed. At about seven o'clock, though, last night, a handful of journalists were told they'd be arriving just after 8.30 local time, As he said, in a military airbase. about an hour from Dublin. A few of us managed to get down there. Kushner and Witkoff arrived, went into this tiny little room. Moments later, President Zelensky arrived with his motorcade onto the airbase. They went in and spoke for about 90 minutes or so and gave a statement afterwards, confirming that certainly they did speak to Vladimir Putin about Europe having an equal, more or less, place at the table. They didn't confirm this is going to happen, but certainly that's what part of the conversation and the debrief was. Now, the other point is that throughout the day yesterday, there was a real concern amongst EU leaders and European leaders that part of Vladimir Putin's process was that he wants to overhaul, once again, European security architecture, including maybe prevent more members joining NATO. And at the end of this meeting, late last night, around 10 o'clock, I managed to catch Vladimir Zelensky, President Zelensky, as he was on his way to his airplane, and I asked him whether that's what he heard from Witkoff A lot of it depends on when and how the war will end in Ukraine. When and how. And this will have influence on all other steps. And all these steps will be after the ending of the war, after security guarantees for Ukraine. Security guarantees of Ukraine, for Ukraine, sorry, for Ukraine, it's already part of security guarantees of Europe. Because Ukraine already is a defending line of Europe. Ukraine is already the capabilities, strong capabilities for Europe. We are the part of Europe. And we are the part of security architecture already. So if we are in NATO, that's what I said to Jared and Steve, if we will be in NATO, this is one architecture. Of course, changes, because new, strong country with a strong army will be in NATO. Everybody is happy, by the way, in Europe. We talked about it today. Everybody is very happy if we will be in NATO. But if not, it's another infrastructure. Are you more optimistic right now than you were 24 hours ago? Are you more optimistic that Putin or anybody wants to make an end to this war? I have to be realistic each day until we will not prevail, but I will be very optimistic when the war will end. And Shona, leaders from the 27 EU member states will gather in Dublin today. What are they expected to make of all this? Indeed, Stefan, because as we talked about that, The meeting last night was very late, so they'll be digesting what they might have heard, particularly the national security advisers will be talking to EU leaders. And as we heard from President Zelensky there, when I asked him was he a bit more optimistic than he was 24 hours previous, he said he's realistic. And of course, nobody was expecting miracles. But again, the concern that Antonio Costa, President of the European Council, and Zelensky have, which is that Putin once again wants to have a say in Europe's security, that is going to hang over this. meeting today in addition to that there will be a very much. Stefan. Shona Murray in Dublin, thank you very much for your reporting. Now, Europe's economy is facing a dangerous combination of challenges. Sluggish growth, mounting public debt and rising borrowing costs. As sovereign bond yields put pressure on government finances, Europe's ability to invest in its future is increasingly in question. Meanwhile, deep-rooted structural weaknesses from poor productivity to a lack of competitiveness continue to hold the continent back. What needs to change to get Europe back on track? Let's put this question to Mateusz Szczyrek, head of the IMF's European department, who joins me now in the studio. Good morning and great to have you here. Good morning. So what is Europe's economic perspective and what should we be worried about? Let's start with good news. First of all, Europe is coping with the latest stress, that is the war in the Middle East and the spike in energy prices, rather well. In fact, the growth has been higher than we feared it would have been. And that is good news. Inflation is higher, but it's not in a runaway path. It's well contained, given the scale of the shock. The bad news is that the potential growth, the long-term growth outlook, remains rather poor. You're talking about 1% expansion that is normal, and that normal is worrying. And Europe needs, and European countries need to work on increasing this potential to increase prosperity of its citizens, to make it easier for the governments to provide public services, and that requires reforms. In several countries, sovereign bond yields have come under pressure. Is this a warning from the markets? Indeed, governments in Europe and across the world, they pay more to service the debt. And this increase is, to some extent, it's global. It's linked with higher prices, higher interest rates with central banks in the world. But there is a local perspective and countries in Europe that have higher public debt, that have more political instability, that have uncertain fiscal prospects, they pay more. And that is a powerful reminder that we cannot run very large budget deficits forever and that public debt needs to be serviced. And the costs of servicing this debt can crowd out other public spending. This brings me to France. Could France become the next weak link in the Eurozone, potentially threatening financial stability across the monetary union? I mean, it's well within France's ability to stabilise and bring down. Bond yields and the cost of servicing public debt, but that requires quick adoption of the 2027 budget. It requires putting public debt at a sustainable path. And the elections next year, that brings an ability for France to set the new path in this respect and stabilize the situation. So far, it's still an orderly... Yes, the yields are higher, but the markets are functioning normally. Are you worried about the growing political instability in Europe? Looking at France, you mentioned the elections. Looking at Spain, where we have elections. Looking at Germany. In Europe, we always have elections, so there's nothing to worry about. But maybe not that consequential. There's nothing to worry about. But whatever... The IMF is never commenting on the elections themselves, but we do comment on policies, and that is rather clear what needs to be done. What needs to be done is to stabilize public debt and make sure that growth accelerates. And that is indeed growth-enhancing reforms. This will make also the political tensions within countries much less. When wages grow, when prosperity grows, then the political pressures also fall. There's no shortage in Europe of economic diagnosis. Think about the Draghi report years ago. Why is it so painfully slow to implement the recommendations? I mean, growth-enhancing reforms, the ones that influence the way firms do business, the way we pay taxes, they, first of all, they always take time, and they are sometimes less flashy than the big announcement on new spending measure, for example. So it has to be said that a lot is being implemented. across European countries and also in Brussels, so I would say give it time. The thing is that the world is not standing still. The world is changing, the economic structure of European economy needs to change more quickly and European firms indeed lack flexibility and scale and for that there is more needs to be done. Coordination is always difficult. But I'm hopeful that the improvement will happen and Europe will be more prosperous. All right, Matteo Strueck, thank you so much, head of the IMF's European department. Thank you for your time today. NVIDIA is at the center of the global artificial intelligence revolution. But the American chip giant is now facing an extraordinary crisis following the shock resignation of its CEO, Jensen Huang, amid allegations of an espionage scandal. The implications could go far beyond one company's leadership, raising serious questions about corporate security, China's intelligence ambitions, and America's technological supremacy. To answer all these questions, I'm now joined by Andrea Renda, Head of Research at the Center for European Policy Studies here in Brussels. Good morning. Always great to have you on. Good morning. So let's go right to it. Jensen Wang's resignation, certainly the end of an era. Could this become a major crisis for the entire global AI industry? The answer is yes, because Jensen Wang is not just basically the tech leader of the past few years, the person that has led the company that was doing GPUs for video games into becoming the backbone of the modern AI revolution, But he is also... A diplomat, a tech diplomat for the United States around the world, who's been striking deals, who's been sitting with presidents everywhere. So there is a soft power in Jensen Huang, which is also driving the whole AI industry. And his policy of buying shares or facilitating the rise of other companies around its ecosystem has really created something that sustains itself, also because Jensen Huang has been really somehow the master of puppets of everyone. So, now that you mention it, how much damage could this scandal do to the confidence, to the global AI community, particularly investors and governments? I think it's early days. The scandal could remain self-contained to the position of Jensen Wang. NVIDIA, of course, is a fantastic company, is a very solid company, can continue, it will continue producing its chips. But there is a value to a CEO, to a very charismatic CEO of a company, which is enormous. We've seen that with Sam Altman, with others. I mean, the markets have been valuing enormously these figures. So with the loss of confidence and also the loss of strategic positioning, Thank you. NVIDIA is considered to be structurally important and strategic for the whole of the United States. You know, the whole AI industry might lose its trailblazer. and its leader. And this might mean everyone will now look for alternatives. And this might lead to a slowdown in the whole industry. Is China's intelligence apparatus now playing a much more sophisticated Thank game here, not only targeting technology, but also the people who control it? I think China has been very sophisticated in building its own AI industry. It uses everything. I'm not sure it uses spies as well. I think there is much more to this story that we will discover in the coming days. There will be an investigation and so on. So it's early days. you. It's not necessarily about Chinese spying. It's about selling chips to China and dodging export controls. So there are two sides to this story. We will discover whether it's actually China orchestrating all this, or it's actually a businessman with the sort of tacit consent of the U.S. administration. Managing to do business in a very successful way across the world. Interesting. And what should Europe take away of all this? Well, I've been critical in the past of the excess dependency on one supplier and Europe's factories and future gigafactories have featured. I think we should diversify. We should make sure that we don't depend on one single supplier. And also, we should make sure that gradually we build our own internal capacity to produce chips or source chips from trusted partners. Now, this is not going to change for the time being. NVIDIA chips are the leading ones in the market. And if we want to build our own tech leadership over the coming years, So should continue purchasing those chips, but also trying to look for alternatives and also trying to be a bit smarter on the global market. And finally, who benefits from this crisis, briefly? Well, the only ones that so far stand to benefit, well, certainly some of the Chinese companies might, although they might not be able to use the NVIDIA chips that they've been using for years. Definitely the tech giants, the old ones, we might say, once we were calling them the new ones, right, Alphabet or Microsoft. That are building their own chips. They're recently also releasing very important chips. Also, OpenAI has been building its own chips. They might stand to lead because the whole market will look for alternatives, and they are very attractive. A fascinating conversation. We'll continue with that one day. And that does it for us today, this morning. Thank you for watching. I'm Stefan Grobe. Take care. I'll see you on Monday.